I'm liking just about all the new changes that have been made to the site recently. However, I'm not as enthused about hiding all but the eight most popular story categories on the main page behind a link. I'm pretty new here--only been lurking for a few months--but it feels like the popular stories these days are "all mind control, all the time" with a dash of fantasy sprinkled in. Does it make sense to encourage this focus even further, potentially turning off readers and writers (like myself) that don't really vibe with that whole scene or are looking for a little more variety?
If a category hasn't seen any story activity in a month, then sure--maybe it makes sense to hide it, but there are hidden categories with lots of activity right now.
Thanks for raising this, and welcome to CHYOA! I understand your concern. I made the change because showing all 32 categories created a large wall that pushed the rest of the homepage far down. The selection isn’t fixed. It updates daily based on story views within each category over the previous 30 days, so categories move in and out as reader interest changes. The homepage now shows eight categories on smaller layouts, nine on larger screens, and up to twelve on the widest screens (I changed it after your post). All available categories remain easy to find on the dedicated Story Categories page. I think that’s a better home for the complete list, while the homepage provides a shorter, changing snapshot.
Actually just had a thought on this. Maybe a happy medium would be to include a full list of plain text links (like tags on stories are listed) of every category at the top or bottom of the fancy list with images and descriptions that top categories get? That way they're still accessible for quick navigation from the front page, but without being heavily advertised and taking up space. Maybe even roll back the Popular Categories list to the original smaller size to compensate? (Or plain text list could be added to the sidebar, but I don't personally like that option as much.)
